


dancing inbetween (i've got nowhere to hide)

by sleepingontheceiling



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Season/Series 01
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-21
Updated: 2016-12-21
Packaged: 2018-09-10 23:06:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 861
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8943139
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sleepingontheceiling/pseuds/sleepingontheceiling
Summary: They grew up stupidly, suddenly, like they did not have the time to care until they had everything to care about.





	

“You okay?” Dustin asks. 

_No,_ Will (the Wise) thinks, _when will people stop asking me that._ “....Yeah,” he says. 

Lucas’ eyes narrow. Mike’s impressionable features crumple. He doesn’t quite believe him. Dustin presses his lips together, thinking.

If he had known, he wouldn't have left Will beneath those stars the night he last saw him, not knowing it could have been the very last time. They had laughed like children. Because they were. 

But he hadn’t known. 

You can race but you can’t always win. Sometimes you fall off your bike. Sometimes you just lose. 

// 

Eleven - oh God, it was always Eleven.

Mike didn’t quite understand what it was about El that made him want to be as close to that girl as possible. 

Until she was gone. Ripped from him when he’d only just found her. 

You can’t just change people and leave. You can’t just break something into tiny fragments and leave them on the ground. You can’t possibly pick up all the pieces, you can’t possibly pick up these pieces. 

So Mike hugs himself, bringing his knees up and tucking his chin behind them, thinking of what could not be, and what could have been.

It's much harder to be the one who stays.

//

It’s cold. 

Will jolts awake, panicking in the dim moonlight. _**MOM!**_ His hands shake as his head seems to turn itself around and spin in rapid circles. Circles, circles, memories like fragments, like broken colored glass. Like tiny shards in a kaleidoscope. They're spinning into oblivion.

He remembers moss. Green. Screeches. Trembling fingers. His outstretched hand. One that doesn’t know the weight of what it truly seeks, of what it is missing. 

He doesn't understand how they could have tried so hard to feel this way. 

He’s alive, sure. But survival comes in all shapes and sizes. 

//

The sky is alive, blinking messages of starlight Mike is attempting to interpret. He stares up, dazed. He feels the soft landing of snowflakes on his cheek. They fuse with his eyelashes like tears and start melting at the touch of his skin.

The snowflakes are fluttering down from the sky, swirling like the thoughts that are running through his mind. They are taunting him with their freedom. 

He is jealous of their ability to fly through the air. 

It’s Christmas. He is twelve years old. He is jealous of snowflakes. Misses El. Loves her still? Forever? 

And the snowflakes keep falling. 

Falling.

Falling.

//

She loved her.

Saw the light in her eyes, heard her cry and laugh. She was always there. Her best friend.

Nancy's face is so wet. Her eyes are so red. It would almost look beautiful if life wasn't so beautifully tragic already. Because have you ever tasted death? It's not sweet. It's bitter. Terribly, terribly bitter.

So she keeps moving forward. Watches her little brother with his best friends. Brushes little Holly’s hair. Holds Steve’s hand. Hands Jonathan the wrapped up camera.

Sees the light in all their eyes. 

//

“Will,” Mike blurts out. 

Will looks at him, liking the way his name sounds when he says it, like a plea, like a call to reason, to reality.

But he can’t answer. He's in-between worlds. There is a quiver behind his ribs, he thinks only of slugs and coughing and crooked shutter mouths. Severing ties with savage joy. His friends, they grew up stupidly, suddenly, like they did not have the time to care until they had everything to care about. 

"Will," Mike says again.

He simply holds out his hand to him. Will takes it, feeling his fluttering heartbeat. He takes the hand of someone pulling him home.

//

He coughs up fear. Chokes on something like regret. There’s something burning deep down, making it raw in his throat like acid. It is hard to breathe.

“Damn it,” Will mutters to himself. “What’s wrong with me?”

Eleven shifts, eyes sad. “I can’t believe someone hasn’t asked you that yet.”

//

Her body shivers. 

She drops her head like a girl divided and defeated. Because the soul of a person does not live life with a clock. It does not know reason nor can it understand the concept of time. 

It just feels emptier.. like something is missing from it, forever. It doesn't realize, can't ever know what is temporary and what is permanent. It only knows what is real.

( _Friends don’t lie_ )

But she is stubborn. Stubborn in the way of the world and stubborn like certain people are, this is how it is and if not; _I will make it so._ But being bold is not being brave. Being young does not make everything right. 

Eleven thinks of frozen waffles, baby pink dresses and the kindness in Mike’s eyes.

It leaves her heart swollen. Her mind soft. Her belly full. Her nose bleeding.

//

A heart is not some pebble. It is a muscle, finicky hot and fierce, a warrior in one's body. Then again, what is love in a world where dreams get crushed like tiny bugs, where monsters are real, where people shatter like mama's dishes?

They never could have predicted this. But stranger things have happened.

And stranger things will happen.

**Author's Note:**

> Hi hello. This series got me. So many brilliant characters. Had to write a lil something. Not sure if it all flows together but will probably add on to it. 
> 
> Feedback always welcomed and appreciated. 
> 
> Thx.
> 
> -han


End file.
